Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, as I come to the floor today, the Senate is approaching one of our most important votes, really, in years. The tax relief legislation that we will be voting on will be, I believe, great for America, great for the American people, and it will do a lot for the future of our great country. It has been a long process. There has been a lot of discussion, and there has been years of preparation waiting for today's vote.

The Finance Committee has held over 70 hearings on the subject over the last 6 years. When we were debating it on the floor, we had about 285 amendments offered to this legislation. There have been a lot of changes over the past few weeks to include as many good ideas as possible. After all that, it is understandable that there may be some confusion about what the legislation does. I want to speak today about the various ways that this legislation is good for hard-working Americans, like the people in my home State of Wyoming.

First, most people are going to pay lower tax rates. For a couple who makes between $19,000 and $77,000 a year, the rates are going to drop from 15 percent to 12 percent. So a family might see their tax bill drop by more than $1,000 just from this one part of the Republican tax relief plan alone.

The second thing I want to point out is that this legislation roughly doubles the standard deduction. It goes up to $12,000 for a single person who files and then to $24,000 for a married couple. Well, that is double. People will not have to pay Federal income tax on all of that money--none of it at all. It is a standard deduction of $24,000 for a family. So if we combine that with the lower rates--the lower rates and the higher deduction--it is even more money that people are going to be able to keep of their own money. Instead of having Washington spend it, they can spend it. They are not going to be sending it to Washington for someone else to spend it.

Mr. President, you know as well as I do that people are much better deciders about how their money ought to be spent, and they get a better value for their money than when they send it to Washington for Washington to spend it, supposedly on their behalf. It is not only that. Their taxes might be a lot simpler to figure out come April 15. We have lower rates, a higher standard deduction, and now it is simpler to figure out on April 15.

A lot of people are looking around trying to find deductions they can take and save a little money on their taxes. We have seen that for years--ways to find additional deductions. People save the receipts. Then they look at the receipts. They go through the box and find out what they spent, and how much they spent. They gather up their receipts and fill out extra forms.

Under this tax relief plan, they can choose just to take this much higher standard deduction and not have to spend all that additional time looking through the shoe box of receipts trying to find something they may have spent. This is going to make tax filing a whole lot simpler for lots of Americans.

How many people are going to benefit from this? Today about 70 percent of people who fill out their tax form choose the standard deduction. Under this plan, which doubles the standard deduction, we expect that maybe even more than 9 out of 10 Americans are going to be able to use this simplified way of filling out the tax forms. They

are going to see that it is really a good deal for them personally, individually, for them and their families.

Millions of people are going to save money and have an easier time filling out their tax form--their tax return--and they will save money. In the past, they had to pay somebody to prepare their taxes for them. They will not have to save the receipts and fill out the extra forms, and they will not have to worry that they are going to be audited by the IRS for trying to keep more of their hard-earned money. They will be able to keep more of their money and use their time doing something else that they actually enjoy doing instead of filling out forms and sending money to the Federal Government.

That is another way Democrats are trying to confuse people. They want people to think tax relief is somehow taking away options. It is actually giving them more options. That is what we are seeing here. It is expanding the standard deduction that a lot of people already use, and many more people will be able to use it under the Republican plan.

That brings me to another important point that I want to make about this tax reduction plan. We did work hard to keep a lot of the deductions that are important to some Americans. In some cases, we even made them better. For people who still come out ahead by itemizing their deductions--and there certainly will be some--there is another way that they can keep more of their money. People can still take a deduction if they donate to charity. People can still save money on their retirement savings through an IRA or a retirement plan at work.

If someone has children, we actually double the tax credit they get to $2,000 per child. They don't even have to itemize their taxes to get that $2,000 per child tax credit. It is just a straight tax cut on top of the other cuts they get under this Republican plan. They still get to set up an account to save for their children's education, if they like.

For people who have high medical expenses, this tax relief plan actually saves them more money on their taxes than the old way. Republicans understand that medical costs remain out of control in this country. There were a lot of policies that the Democrats and President Obama put in place that raised the cost of medical care for people all across the country. Republicans are working hard at getting rid of those policies and bringing down the cost of care across the country. Until we get that completely done, this tax relief plan makes it easier for people to deduct their higher medical costs.

So today someone can get tax relief if their medical expenses are more than 10 percent of their income, under the old law. We drop that threshold to 7.5 percent so that more people will qualify. That gives people additional relief while we keep working on ways to reduce the cost of care.

That brings me to another way that this tax relief legislation is going to save a lot of people money. The Republican plan effectively repeals--eliminates--the ObamaCare individual mandate tax. This was the outrageous tax penalty that made ObamaCare a mandatory program by sending the IRS after someone if they didn't have Washington-approved health insurance. You had to pay a tax. You had to pay a fine. People knew it was unpopular. It didn't matter to President Obama and the Democrats. They took it all the way to the Supreme Court to force people to pay a fine, a tax--to force them to buy ObamaCare health insurance, even though it wasn't right for them or their family and they couldn't afford it.

It didn't matter to the Democrats or President Obama. Oh no, you have to buy it. The insurance is too expensive. If you can't buy it, if you can't afford it, tough, pay the tax.

We are eliminating that tax completely. In my home State of Wyoming, over 16,000 people ended up hit with that fine, hit with that tax. Over $6 million was collected from the fine people in my State who couldn't afford ObamaCare insurance. On average, this ObamaCare mandate tax is about $700. The legislation says that tax will, in the future, be zero. It takes ObamaCare from being a mandatory program to turning it into a voluntary program. More than 6 million people paid that tax in the United States this past year. These people will now get a tax break. Under the Republicans, they will see this, and it will affect their lives and give them more money to spend.

It doesn't take away anyone's insurance, as Democrats have claimed. It just says that nobody should have to pay an extra tax just because they decide that overpriced ObamaCare insurance isn't right for them.

So those are just some of the ways this Republican tax plan legislation is good for Americans. It saves people money. It saves them time. It gives them more freedom. Together, it is about $1.5 trillion in tax savings over the next 10 years. It is money that families, small businesses, and large employers will not have to send to Washington. They can use the money any way they want.

It is interesting. Last week Nancy Pelosi was talking about this Republican tax relief plan. She said:

This is who they are. This is what they came here to do.

She probably meant it as an insult, but she stumbled upon the real difference between Republicans and Democrats like herself. Republicans believe in cutting people's taxes and letting people keep more of their hard-earned money, because we believe hard-working Americans should be able to make the decisions about what money they save or they spend or they invest. It is their money. It is not the government's money, which is the way Nancy Pelosi looks at all of this in terms of ways she can then grow the government.

Republicans look at this and say: How can we give people more freedom?

That is what this legislation does. It is very simple.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I come to the floor today to talk about the tax relief and tax reduction legislation that the conference committee is currently working on. To me and to all Americans, this is a very important piece of legislation. I think it is going to get even better as the House and the Senate work to hammer out the differences to help lower the tax rates for American families.

When you look at this legislation, there are so many policies that will help to make America's economy grow. Families across the country will get a tax break. It is what they need. It is what they have been looking for, for a long time. Main Street businesses will also get a tax break. When people get a raise like that, they invest in their families, and they invest in their communities. They create jobs. Wages go up. The economy grows, and our Nation gets stronger.

You don't have to take my word for it. Respected mainstream economists are saying exactly the same thing. They agree that our economy needs to grow. They agree that the legislation we are working on--which passed the Senate, passed the House, and is being joined together--will deliver the growth that our Nation needs.

In October the Council of Economic Advisers put out a report looking at some of the ideas for tax relief. This is a group that advises the President on economic issues. Their report found that the tax plan, like the one Republicans wrote, will grow the economy between 3 percent and 5 percent. That is real growth. It is strong growth, and it is good news for America.

There was another study that came out in October. That was by a group of

economists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Boston University. They did their own calculations and used their own numbers, and they found the exact same good news for the American economy. Just like the other report, this one said that the Republican tax plan would grow the economy by between 3 percent and 5 percent.

A third study was released in November. It was by the Tax Foundation. Again, it is a respected group of economists who study this kind of issue for a living. They looked specifically at the legislation as it was introduced in the Senate Finance Committee and, then, passing the Senate. This group found that the plan would increase the size of the economy by 3.7 percent. That is the same range, between 3 and 5 percent, but more specifically, 3.7 percent.

Then, there was a fourth analysis by one more group of nine respected independent economists. This group wrote about their conclusions in a letter to the Treasury Secretary on November 26. They wrote that they expect this tax relief plan to boost the economy by 3 percent over the next 10 years.

We have four different entities, four different estimates, four different groups of prominent economists. They looked at the tax relief plan. They looked at it in different ways and used different analyses, and they all found that it would grow the American economy by very similar amounts, all by at least 3 percent.

There was one other study that some people have been talking about. This was an estimate by a group called the Joint Committee on Taxation. This group predicts that growth under the Republican plan will increase, but by just 0.8 percent over those next 10 years. That works out, roughly, to eight one-hundredths of 1 percent a year. All of these other groups say at least 3 percent, maybe 5 percent, and this other group says less than 1 percent over a decade. It is hard to believe.

Why is this one group, which is being quoted often by the Democrats, so far out of line, out of the mainstream, with what other economists are saying? The reason they reached such a different conclusion is that they did their analysis very differently from all the other groups. This committee combines a few different economic models into their estimate. That is reasonable. When we look closely at the models they combined, we found that they counted the most pessimistic models much more heavily than they did the more realistic models. So, of course, they are going to come up with an overly pessimistic conclusion.

I think it can be useful to take these more negative views into account. Nobody thinks we should just pick from the rosiest scenario or base our policies on one prediction. That is not what is happening here. We have four different groups of economists that predict strong economic growth of at least 3 percent. The one outlier is much more pessimistic, much more cautious.

Another thing to remember is that even this very cautious estimate says that the economy will get bigger because of the Republican plan than if we did nothing at all. Even the pessimistic group is saying: Oh, yes, the economy will grow under the Republican plan. They say it will reduce deficits by an additional $400 billion over the next 10 years.

I think we are going to do a whole lot better than that because our economy is going to grow much faster. Under President Obama and Washington Democrats, we had 8 years of policies that held back our economy and caused it to grow at a very tepid, slow pace. Economists looked at these policies, and they said that if things continue on that path, we can expect the economy to grow by about the 1.8 percent we have been seeing through the Obama administration.

With Republicans setting the agenda, those policies are history and so is this slow economic growth that had been created during the Obama years. Look what just happened in the last two economic quarters of this year. Over these 6 months, our economy grew at a pace of more than 3 percent. The economy has created more than 2 million jobs since President Trump was elected a little over a year ago. The economy is responding--responding to policies that Republicans have been talking about and to what we have been doing in terms of eliminating so many punishing, burdensome, expensive regulations that have caused such a drag on our economy.

When we pass legislation like this tax relief act, it will give businesses confidence that we are keeping our promises. It gives them confidence that they can keep hiring, keep investing, and keep creating more jobs.

Take a look at the fact that there are 2 million more new jobs since election day of last year. Someone said: Oh, no, you have to wait until Inauguration Day to start counting. I disagree. I will tell you that in my home State of Wyoming, on election night, when the results were in and it was known that Donald Trump had been elected President of the United States, there was immediate optimism, immediate confidence, and an immediate positive spring in people's steps. The decision at that point by the American electorate said: Yes, it is time for this economy to take off. And it has.

When someone comes out with an estimate about economic growth and they don't take into account all of these different things, I think, maybe, they are living in the past, when they were looking at an economic growth model of 1.8 percent. I think, maybe, they got so used to the anemic growth we had in the Obama years that they are still expecting that to continue into the future. They are not taking into account that things are different now, that Republicans are passing our economic plans, and that the burdensome regulations and the redtape has been cut. They are not taking into account that President Trump is in the White House.

Those things make a very big difference when it comes to sustaining this progress that we have seen over the past year. Four out of five studies agree that the Republican tax plan will deliver the kind of economic growth that the American people want and the American economy needs--a strong, healthy, and growing economy.

I yield the floor

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I yield back all time.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I would like to take the opportunity to express my appreciation to MeKenna Carman for her hard work as an intern in my Washington, DC, office. I recognize her efforts and contributions to my office, as well as to the State of Wyoming.

MeKenna is a native of Arizona. She is a student at Arizona State University, where she is studying political science. She has demonstrated a strong work ethic, which has made her an invaluable asset to our office. The quality of her work is reflected in her great efforts over the last several months.

I want to thank MeKenna for the dedication she has shown while working for me and my staff. It was a pleasure to have her as part of our team. I know she will have continued success with all of her future endeavors. I wish her all my best on her next journey.

Mr. President, I would like to take the opportunity to express my appreciation to Autumn Jensen for her hard work as an intern in my Cheyenne office. I recognize her efforts and contributions to my office, as well as to the State of Wyoming.

Autumn is a native of Lander. She is a sophomore at the University of Wyoming, studying political science and statistics. She has demonstrated a strong work ethic, which has made her an invaluable asset to our office. The

quality of her work is reflected in her great efforts over the last several months.

I want to thank Autumn for the dedication she has shown while working for me and my staff. It is a pleasure to have her as part of our team. I know she will have continued success with all of her future endeavors. I wish her all my best on her journey.

Mr. President, I would like to take the opportunity to express my appreciation to Jake Kennedy for his hard work as an intern in my Washington, DC, office. I recognize his efforts and contributions to my office, as well as to the State of Wyoming.

Jake is a native of California. He is a graduate of Bucknell University, where he studied political science and government. He has demonstrated a strong work ethic, which has made him an invaluable asset to our office. The quality of his work is reflected in his great efforts over the last several months.

I want to thank Jake for the dedication he has shown while working for me and my staff. It is a pleasure to have him as part of our team. I know he will have continued success with all of his future endeavors. I wish him all my best on his journey.

Mr. President, I would like to take the opportunity to express my appreciation to Alex Lupsaiu for his hard work as an intern in my Washington, DC, office. I recognize his efforts and contributions to my office, as well as to the State of Wyoming.

Alex is a native of California. He attended the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of Oxford, where he studied philosophy. He has demonstrated a strong work ethic, which has made him an invaluable asset to our office. The quality of his work is reflected in his great efforts over the last several months.

I want to thank Alex for the dedication he has shown while working for me and my staff. It is a pleasure to have him as part of our team. I know he will have continued success with all of his future endeavors. I wish him all my best on his journey.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, the Environmental Protection Agency needs strong and experienced leadership. That is why I come to the floor today to speak in support of President Trump's nomination of Susan Parker Bodine to serve as the Assistant Administrator for the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance at the EPA.

Her expertise and her experience make her an exceptional pick to lead this important office at the Agency. She has extensive environmental policy knowledge from years working as a private attorney, a staffer on Capitol Hill, and in leadership at the EPA.

From 2006 to 2009, during the Bush administration, she served as the Assistant Administrator for the EPA's Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response. She also served as the staff director of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure's Subcommittee on Water Resources and the Environment.

Most recently, Susan served as my chief counsel at the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. That is why I know Susan is committed to finding commonsense ways to protect America's land, air, and water.

In this new role, she will work to help communities and small businesses comply with the law, while holding polluters accountable. Democrats and Republicans, alike, agree that she is the right person for the job.

Mathy Stanislaus, a former Obama EPA Assistant Administrator, said: ``Ms. Bodine understands both the internal side of the agency and the proper balance of enforcement'' and is a ``standup person.''

Ben Grumbles, a former George W. Bush Assistant Administrator and currently Maryland's secretary of the environment, said: ``She's tough and fair and committed to public service.''

Susan is an excellent pick to lead the EPA's Office of Enforcement. Taking on the critical task of enforcing our Nation's environmental laws is a big job. I can think of no better candidate for this job than Susan Bodine.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, about a year ago, the American people voted for fundamental change in this country, and, last week, Republicans in the Senate continued to deliver. We passed a plan to give Americans substantial tax relief. This legislation is exactly what people were asking for last November, and it is exactly what this country needs now.

Because of this Republican plan, people will be able to keep a lot more of their hard-earned money. They are going to find that their taxes will be simpler and fairer. They are going to see our economy getting stronger and healthier. That is good news for our country, and it is, certainly, good news for the American people. This legislation was an important promise that Republicans made, and it is a promise that Republicans have kept. It is just the latest Republican accomplishment that is helping Americans.

Another thing that the Republicans are providing is tremendous relief from Washington regulations. I think that a lot of people lost track of exactly how much damage the Democrats and the Obama administration did to the American economy. The Obama administration added 285 major regulations during the course of the previous administration. Every one of them imposed a burden on Americans. The total cost of these rules was $122 billion per year. That was both the direct cost

in terms of money and also counting the time needed to fill out the paperwork that was created by these excessive rules. Twenty-one of these rules were actually finalized after the 2016 Presidential election. That is after the American people spoke and said that they wanted change. Yet President Obama went straight on with piling more regulations onto the backs of the American people.

One of the first things that Republicans in Congress did this year was to start striking down unnecessary, burdensome, costly regulations from the Obama years. Republicans wiped 15 of these major rules off the books. Major rules are rules that cost over $100 million in terms of the compliance cost, the actual cost, and the time cost. That is going to save Americans as much as $36 billion over time.

One of these rules was an important part of President Obama's war on coal. It was called the stream buffer rule. It was designed to shut down a lot of the coal mining that is going on in this country. It would have destroyed up to a third of the coal mining jobs in America. So we passed a congressional resolution that protected coal mining jobs and protected American energy independence. We struck down 14 regulations like this one in the first few months of this year.

In October, Republicans blocked a 15th rule. This was the new regulation from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The rule was written during the Obama administration, and Obama appointees at the agency finalized it last summer. This is the agency that has been in the news recently because it has been so out of control. Republicans in Congress had to step in and get rid of an unnecessary rule that was really, in my opinion, just a payoff by the Democrats to trial lawyers.

Republicans have saved Americans $36 billion by getting rid of rules and regulations. Democrats, on the other hand, have cost the American people $122 billion a year in costs due to rules and regulations.

Republicans in the Senate also took a major step in this tax relief legislation by repealing the ObamaCare insurance mandate. This takes ObamaCare from being a mandatory program to being a voluntary program. It is going to save a lot of Americans a lot of money. In 2015, there were over 6.7 million Americans who paid this tax. The average tax penalty for the American people this past year was $700. It is a big deal to give American families relief from that tax burden. It is also a big part of rolling back this idea that Washington knows best what works all across the country. The ObamaCare insurance mandate is more than a tax, and the damage it does is more than just the paperwork and money that people have to pay. It is an outrageous and unfair requirement that people have to buy something that isn't right for them and their family but the government says they have to buy it. When Republicans struck down this mandate, we gave people back the freedom they had to decide for themselves and to make their own choices.

The Republicans in Congress have been very busy saving Americans from the burdens and injustices of these Obama regulations. I can state that we have a very strong ally in the Trump administration, because President Trump has been the deregulator in chief. Since his very first day in office, he has been rolling back the regulations that have constrained people over the previous 8 years. He froze action on nearly 2,000 Obama administration rules that hadn't taken effect yet. He wrote a new rule for his administration--when one new rule comes in, two go out. In other words, for every significant new regulation, his administration would offset it by getting rid of two other rules. That is how to make a difference in Washington. That is how the President was able to remove 860 ineffective, duplicative, and obsolete regulations in just his first 6 months in office. That is a very big difference from what the Democrats in Washington did, and we have already started seeing the results.

The American economy has created 2 million jobs since President Trump was elected a little over 1 year ago. Our economy grew at a rate of 3.3 percent last quarter. The unemployment rate dropped to 4.1 percent. Last Friday, the Washington Post had two items on one page. The first stated that consumer spending had increased in October and incomes grew. The article said: ``The October rise indicates that consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of economic activity, began the fourth quarter with healthy momentum.''

The second article, appearing on the same day in Washington Post, Friday, noted that weekly applications for unemployment aid fell for the week. It said that when the number of unemployment applications are low like this, it is a sign that hiring is healthy. It is a sign that employers are confident enough to keep workers on the payroll.

During the Obama years, Washington Democrats piled all of these regulations onto the economy. Because of them, economists said they had expected future growth to be around 1.8 percent. President Trump and the Republicans in Congress are cutting the regulations, and the economy is growing at 3 percent. That is the kind of change that is possible under Republican pro-growth policies.

That is why we are confident that we are on the right track. It is why we are confident that the economy is going to continue to accelerate under the tax relief we passed this past week. It is why we are confident that America will continue to thrive when we give people relief from the Washington regulations and start to unwind the redtape. That is what the American people voted for a little over a year ago. That is what Republicans are delivering in Congress and in the White House.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senators Rubio and Booker be recognized to make motions to instruct and that their motions be the only motions in order remaining; further, that there be up to 10 minutes of debate on the motions concurrently, and upon the use or yielding back of time on the motions, all remaining time on the House message be expired, and the Senate vote on

the Rubio and Booker motions to instruct in the order listed with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I have 8 requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority leaders.

Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate:

Committee on Environment and Public Works

The Committee on Environment and Public Works is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, December 6, 2017, at 10 a.m. in room SD-406 to conduct a hearing on the following nomination: R. D. James, of Missouri, to be an Assistant Secretary of the Army, Department of Defense.

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs

The Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, December 6, 2017, at 10 a.m. to conduct a hearing entitled ``Adapting to Defend the Homeland Against the Evolving International Terrorist Threat''.

Committee on Judiciary

The Committee on Judiciary is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, December 6, 2017, at 10 a.m. in room SD-226 to conduct a hearing entitled ``Firearm Accessory Regulation and Enforcing Federal and State Reporting to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NCIS).''

Committee on Indian Affairs

The Committee on Foreign Relations is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, December 6, 2017, at 2:30 p.m. in room SD-628 to conduct a hearing on S. 1870, ``The Securing Urgent Resources Vital to Indian Victim Empowerment Act''.

Committee on Indian Affairs

The Committee on Foreign Relations is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, December 6, 2017, at 2:30 p.m. in room SD-628 to conduct a hearing on S. 644, ``Navajo Utah Water Rights Settlement Act of 2017'' and S. 1770, ``Hualapai Tribe Waters Rights Settlement Act of 2017''.

Special Committee on Aging

The Special Committee on Aging is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, December 6, 2017, at 9:30 a.m. in room SD-562 to conduct a hearing entitled ``America's Aging Workforce: Opportunities and Challenges''.

Subcommittee on Superfund, Waste Management, and Regulatory Oversight

The Subcommittee on Superfund, Waste Management, and Regulatory Oversight of the Committee on Environment and Public Works is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, December 6, 2017, at 2:30 p.m. in room SD-406 to conduct a hearing entitled ``Challenges Facing Superfund and Waste Cleanup Efforts Following Natural Disasters''.

Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, and Counterterrorism

The Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, and Counterterrorism of the Committee on Foreign Relations is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, December 6, 2017, at 2:30 p.m. to conduct a hearing entitled ``Beyond ISIS: Countering Terrorism, Radicalization, and Promoting Stability in North Africa.''

Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, this week, we are debating the Republican tax relief plan.

I had a telephone townhall meeting the other night, along with Senator Enzi, and we talked to the people of Wyoming who have actually done the math and looked at the impact of the things that are included in this proposal--doubling the standard deduction and the child tax credit. People think it is a good deal for them personally, so there is a lot to like in this legislation. It gives tax cuts to hard-working American families; it makes taxes simpler and fairer; it makes American businesses more competitive around the world; and it makes our economy stronger here at home. That is all good news for our country and for the American people.

Now, there is other good news in this legislation, and it is something I continue to hear about at home and heard about over the Thanksgiving recess in Wyoming, which is that it wipes out the ObamaCare insurance mandate tax. This is the tax penalty the Obama healthcare law forced on the American people. Under the Republican plan, people would no longer have to pay a tax penalty to the IRS if they did not want the Democrats' expensive health insurance or if they just couldn't afford it.

We have seen health insurance premiums skyrocket over the past few years in this country, and it is because of the way Democrats wrote the healthcare law. The cost and the deductibles are so high that many people find that even if they have paid for the expensive insurance, they still can't afford to get the care they need. The law says that no matter how expensive the insurance gets or how unusable it is for that individual, by law, people still have to buy it or pay a tax.

Families ought to be able to make decisions about what they want to buy and what works for them, not the government. I believe that if people don't want to buy the ObamaCare insurance, they shouldn't have to pay a tax penalty to the IRS. Those are the things we are looking at.

Interestingly, today in the New York Times, there was more than half a page devoted to this. ``Millions Pay Penalty Instead of Buying Policy. Who Are They?'' Well, in the State of Wyoming, over 15,000 people paid over $5 million in fines to the IRS. This article today says that 6.7 million tax filers paid the penalty in 2015. Who are they? Well, it is not surprising to the Presiding Officer that the great majority of these--8 out of 10 who paid the fine--have an adjusted family income of less than $50,000. It says the $25,000 to $50,000 income range group had the highest share of people paying the penalty in 2015. Why do we think those people aren't able to buy the insurance? It is too expensive. It is not a good deal for them. That is why even the New York Times is reporting that the $25,000 to $50,000 income group--hard-working American families--has the highest share of people paying the penalty.

Then they questioned why they paid the penalty, and it was because they couldn't afford the insurance. It is right here in black and white. It points out that the average penalty in 2017 is $708. That is money those families could use for many other things, but it is not enough compared to the cost of the insurance, which is even higher. A single woman would have to pay a tax of either $695 or 2.5 percent of her income, whichever is higher. That is the rule. The average is over $700. For a couple, the tax would be double. A family with kids would pay additional for each of the children. The majority of Americans say they don't have enough savings to cover a $500 emergency expense if one came up.

Who actually pays? These 16,000 people in Wyoming who paid the penalty are hard-working men and women who are opposed to the fact that Washington--the Federal Government under ObamaCare--says they have to pay a tax if they don't buy a government product that doesn't work for them.

Across the country, over 6 million people were hit with this extra tax. The ObamaCare insurance mandate tax is a direct tax on the working people of this country. I think it is not right. The Republican Party Members of the Senate think it is not right. Washington should not make people pay higher taxes just because they can't afford expensive ObamaCare insurance. People shouldn't be forced to buy a product that is not the right choice for them and their families.

The Congressional Budget Office says that if we get rid of the insurance mandate, 13 million people will eventually decide under their own free will not to have insurance. These people don't view it as a good benefit for them. That is why they may walk away from it. They don't view it as worth their money. Republicans want to give all these people a tax cut. Democrats want to make sure that people still have to pay the tax penalty.

There is a lot that I want to change about how America's healthcare system works. I want to repeal the entire healthcare law that the Democrats wrote a few years ago. I want to return

the money and the decisions back to the people or do that at the State level, where people at the local level can make the best decisions about what works best for them and their State, not a one-size-fits-all coming out of Washington. I haven't given up on trying to get that done because we need to make healthcare better in this country.

In Wyoming, we are down to just one insurer willing to sell these policies. That is happening more and more around the country. One insurer is not a marketplace but a monopoly. That has left many people at the breaking point.

I got an email from one man in Sheridan, WY. He talked about the fact that his monthly premiums will be going up by more than $700 each month next year. That is for two adults, no children, and there is a deductible of $6,000. He and his wife are stuck in a position where they will have to pay more than $2,400 a month for insurance or pay an extra tax.

A woman from Park County wrote to me that her family had to switch insurance plans a couple of years ago. The coverage they had before was canceled.

Why did 5,000 people in Wyoming lose their insurance? Why was it canceled? It was good enough for them, provided what they needed, but the government said it wasn't good enough for the government. That is wrong.

This lady writes about the incredible increase in the costs. She asked, ``What are we supposed to do?''

I have heard that in all corners of the State of Wyoming. What are they supposed to do? I don't believe these people should face a choice between paying sky-high insurance premiums or a sky-high tax penalty to the IRS. People in Wyoming and around the country want to buy insurance that is affordable, that works for them, and that fits their families' needs. They don't want to be forced to buy the insurance that Washington tells them they have to buy because Washington, as we have seen in the past, thinks they know better than the American people. People want the coverage they need so they can go to the doctor they want at lower costs.

I would also point out that the cost of insurance isn't the only problem we are looking at right now. There are other parts of the healthcare law that may actually be harming patients.

As a physician, I receive multiple medical journals. There was a new study out in the American Medical Association cardiology journal that looked at Medicare patients who were hospitalized with heart failure.

Many people across the country are hospitalized for heart failure. It is a chronic condition, and occasionally they have to go back in the hospital for additional treatment.

There is a program in the healthcare law that started to penalize hospitals if that Medicare patient was readmitted to the hospital within 30 days after they had been released from the hospital. There are a number of reasons that may happen, but the goal was to penalize hospitals, and--the goal, the laudable goal, was to give patients better treatment, but that is not what happened. This is the problem: The Democrats wrote into this law and the regulations something that they really had no evidence would actually help patients and save money at the same time. They said: We are going to penalize hospitals. So if every hospital improved its numbers, they were still going to grade it on a curve, so if a hospital didn't improve enough, it was still going to be penalized. That has had huge a impact on hospitals that take sicker patients, regardless of their location, in terms of how they do followup with patients.

Well, it turns out that the study in the Journal of the American Medical Association--a well-respected cardiology journal, their heart issue--says that the death rate actually went up after hospitals faced this new requirement. The study covered over 400 hospitals and over 110,000 patients. The study found that an extra 5,400 people are dying every year just among heart failure patients because of the way the Federal Government has chosen to penalize hospitals around the country when patients are readmitted. It is interesting because what has happened is that the readmission rates in the hospital have actually gone down. The hospitals succeeded in keeping people out to avoid the penalty, but people died in the process.

The Wall Street Journal had an editorial about it last week. They concluded that if you were doing a drug trial on a drug that you were working on inventing to improve the lives of people and you had the same results as this--5,000 people dying--they would have shut it down long ago. That is a deadly, unintended consequence of the ObamaCare healthcare law.

The insurance mandate was supposed to keep premiums from rising. Premiums have gone way up anyway. That is another unintended consequence of the law. In spite of good intentions, that is not what happened under the law that was passed and is the law of the land right now.

I believe we should repeal the entire law. Until we can do that, we should do what we can to help the American people who are struggling to deal with this expensive insurance and what I believe to be an unfair tax and fine that they must pay if they don't buy the insurance because they can't afford it, because it is not a good deal for them and it doesn't work for them or their families. It is not just unpopular, it is un-American. It took away people's choices. It forced them to buy expensive insurance that wasn't right for them.

It is time for the insurance mandate to go away. We know it is a bad idea. We need to give people relief from this terrible tax. The people of Wyoming and the people of this country simply can't afford to wait any longer. It is time to repeal the mandate of the healthcare law.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I yield the floor.